KELOWNA (NEWS1130) – The mid-February Family Day long weekend means many families are heading out to ski resorts they wouldn’t normally visit at this time of year.
Big White, just outside of Kelowna, is going to be staffing its accommodations and restaurants as if it were Christmas.
The resort’s Michael Ballingal is happy the weekend falls mid-February, which is typically slow.
“Half of our crowd is coming from the Lower Mainland and we are talking 8,000 people arriving at the resort for the long weekend,” he adds.
He stresses the early-February timing of the long weekend is something the resorts had lobbied for. They didn’t want Family Day to coincide with the American President’s Day, which falls on the third Monday of the month. President’s Day long weekend already draws big crowds of Americans to BC slopes.
“The timing has worked because Sun Peaks, Silver Star, Big White, Apex, all in the Okanagan Valley, have increased their reservations on the mountains for this weekend, so we are all very excited,” says Ballingal.
He says this long weekend will wind up being the third busiest holiday of the season, after Christmas and President’s Day.
All ski hills in BC are offering lift tickets at 50 per cent off for the day.
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A holiday that isn’t based on commercialism. About time
No holiday for me either, the office voted (I voted the other way) to have Boxing Day off instead as a holiday. It really does not matter as I always work Boxing Day too and every other holiday:(
A Real Holiday should be like Christmas ….. NO WORKING
it is a stat.. if you have to work and you qualify for stat pay then you will be compensated.
http://www.labour.gov.bc.ca/esb/facshts/statutory_holidays.htm
I will not be participating in any “holiday” that was endorsed by this campaigning politician. Apart from being a transparent and nauseating ploy, “Timeo Danaos et dona ferentes” also comes to mind, translating from latin, “Beware of Greeks bearing gifts”.
People have been pushing for a holiday in Feb for decades. Why does it matter who finally brought it in?
Even if I was foolish enough to support the NDP I would still enjoy it.
“Big White is going to be staffing its accommodations and restaurants as if it were Christmas”
But nothing about Resort Operations themselves? Having just spent some time in Big White over new years, my advice is to buy your lift tickets the day before and expect big lineups and poor staffing at about every Customer Service touchpoint on the mountain. We waited more then 25 minutes to pay the 5 bucks for access to the skating rink, we didn’t even need to rent skates!
A big issue seems that each of the service points does everything, from lessons, to rentals, lifts, tours, etc. etc. So even if you just need a lift ticket, you are stuck behind a whole family that needs rentals, you’re going to be waiting much longer then you’d like, it was positively brutal each day we skied in Big White over New Years! The skiing itself is decent, they have a lot of snow this year, but overall, i feel for all the poor condo owners in the village, that resort seems like its struggling to stay above water.